Bonsai Forum

TOPIC: 3d Software for styling bonsai

I am developing software for bonsai modeling. The goal is to built a tool that help in stylizing and shaping bonsais. The thing is that I haven´t seen a tool like that for bonsais already in use. I have seen just a tool that is used for videogames or arquitectural design,the problem with that tool is that it is expensive and dificult to use. Does any one know about any 3D sotware pratical to use for this purpose?

Thanks for your answer. The idea is as you say, to reproduce your bonsai using photos. Taking two photographs with a certain angle and certain distance the 3D coordenates could be estimates, but this is the final goal and is not implemented yet. By now I have built a kind of sketch up where you build a model from scratch or using a single photo so you can follow the silhouette with the mouse. Once you have a 3D model you can play with it prunning and wiring.

Well, from my point of view it would be ideal being able to take several photographs from different angles of a tree and then convert that 2D images into a realistic 3D model. Perhaps to do this, taking from 5 to 8 pictures would be desirable, since it would allow to integrate them all into one 3D model accurate enough. Then, once is built, it would be interesting to predict each cut how would affect the growth of the entire tree. I mean, to do this it has to be taken into account that different species have different growth rate, also its apical dominance differs from one species to another. The effects of other techniques should be considered as well, for instance watering rates, wiring, repotting, root pruning, defoliation, soil mixture proportions. And all this should allow us to predict, at least, how our trees are going to look like in the next 2 years. That is, if you want us to consider it a fully functional and trust worthy software.
Then, other external factors should be taken into account: weather conditions of the location we are living in, the month or season of the year, humidity levels, rain statistics, current position of the tree (indoors or outdoors, facing south, east, north or west), light levels, etc.
Hell...this is an incredibly complicated project. If you manage to pull it out, we´ll all be immensely gratefull to have it with us. There will be no more fears of cutting the wrong branch.
Purists might claim that by accomplishing this you remove the artistic part of this millenary art, but from where I´m standing, that doesn´t change the fact that subjectivity, aesthetics and personal tastes remain singular to each and every individual. So... by doing this I think you´ll speed up the process, eliminate certain intangibles and help us taking a better care of our trees.

That is a fantastic view, may be in the future we get to some point in that direction. But the purpose by now is to shape and stylize as some people do with photoshop but in 3D and with more tools. Building a model, prunning and wiring. You can also grow the tree but no warranty to do as your real exemplar would do (just because there are many possibilities, I guess two trees of the same specie don´t grow exactly de same way). The goal is to visualize it after doing certain action (pruning, writing, different pots, ...).

I am also a member of Ausbonsai forum, they have a section called 360, which gives you a fully controllable 360 degree look at trees on that page. i don't think it is exactly what you are aiming at but has some amazing pictures that may give you some ideas.

I have seen it, the graphics are very nice. I see you can send photographs of your bonsais to get this nice 3D image, but ¿Are you planning to distribute the software behind this service so people can do themselves? How many photographs are needed to get the 3D Model?